13 Apr Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy (PT-OT)
Physical therapy and occupational therapy can be used independently or together. They both provide hands-on rehabilitative work, but physical therapy focuses on a patient’s ability to move their body, while occupational therapy helps clients improve their ability to perform activities of daily living. An occupational therapist treats the whole person and their day-to-day life, while a physical therapist focuses on the actual medical impairment.
What is physical therapy (PT)?
A physical therapist is similar to a doctor in that they take a less integrated approach to recovery and only provide care for a specific impairment. A physical therapist’s job is to improve the impairment by helping a patient increase mobility in certain areas of the body. They may also move bones back into alignment and lessen pain through their techniques.
Physical therapy can help prevent future injuries from occurring and it can help people avoid a future surgery. It is also able to prevent the long-term reliance on pain medications.
What is occupational therapy (OT)?
An occupational therapist treats the entire person, which includes how injuries and cognitive impairments affect their lives. An occupational therapist focuses on helping a patient develop motor skills and regulate emotions or behavior.
Instead of just treating the injury or medical issue, they look to see how that injury or diagnosis is affecting their life. Therefore, their treatment plan usually includes wellness promotion, rehabilitation, and habilitation. That might include reteaching a patient how to dress themselves or rearranging the home to prevent trips and falls.
How they are similar
Although physical therapy and occupational therapy are very different, they do have some things in common. The both:
- Help people prevent future injuries
- Educate people on how the healing process works
- Help people improve their ability to perform daily living activities
In many cases, patients will have contact with both a physical and occupational therapist. After a procedure or an injury, a patient will likely meet with a physical therapist. Once the physical therapist has seen a patient progress, they may refer them to an occupational therapist.
Other therapy services
Physical and occupational therapy aren’t the only options. Depending on a patient’s needs, these forms of therapy may be combined with things like speech therapy, which can address memory loss and swallowing dysfunction, or respiratory therapy, which can help a patient deal with breathing and cardiopulmonary disorders.